Narrative in Comedy films

Codes and Conventions1) Eccentric Characters2) Love Interests3) Attractive Females4) Unattractive Females5) Attractive Males

6) Unattractive Males7) Revealing Outfits8) Colourful Outfits9) Crazy Outfits10) Wise Characters

Codes and Conventions11) Popular Characters12) Unpopular Characters13) Sex14) Drugs15) Random settings

16) Meaningful settings17) Ridiculous scenario’s18) Violence19) Weapons20) Money

Codes and Conventions21) Music22) Swearing23) Nudist scenes24) Physical issues25) Domestic characters

Two Key approaches

• The Classical Hollywood Structure– Order – chaos – order restored– Equilibrium – disequilibrium – new equilibrium– The Three Act Structure

• Comedian led narrative - Showcase of individual gags, personal quirks and set pieces loose held together by a ‘plot’– The Three Stooges– Charlie Chaplin– Monty Python

What is the narrative of Love Actually• The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh

Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people:

What is the narrative of Four Lions• In groups mark out the plot using the Three

Act Structure

Four Lions and Love Actually

• Are mostly the classic Hollywood style but they both do include element of gags and they do play with conventions

• Single goal oriented protagonist

• Narrative is driven by character traits

Four Lions and Love Actually

• Cause and Effect

• Use of subplots

• The Happy ending

Typical Comedy Characters

Researching Different types of Comedy( 20 mins)

• There are many different types of comedy films. – Your job is to identify at least five ‘sub genres’– Define how they fit the general conventions esp

narrative and Character types– Highlight specific conventions esp narrative and

Character types– List at least 5 British films that are typical of the

sub genre.